Doug Finke: Governor abandons mass transit debate for hockey game

Doug Finke

Friday

Nov 30, 2007 at 12:01 AMNov 30, 2007 at 7:49 AM

“ ...bag of trick” (singular) in fourth graf is cq

*Is there anyone left in Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s inner circle who’s willing to tell him when he’s being stupid? Or do they tell him and he ignores it, convinced in his own skewed sense of reality that he can do no wrong?

*Is there anyone left in Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s inner circle who’s willing to tell him when he’s being stupid? Or do they tell him and he ignores it, convinced in his own skewed sense of reality that he can do no wrong?

There’s got to be some explanation for Blagojevich’s decision last week to attend a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game while the Illinois House was voting down a mass transit funding bill the governor had endorsed. And on the same night, no less, that a Chicago TV station was airing a long story about Blagojevich’s lousy work habits.

Blagojevich called lawmakers into special session Wednesday to address the mass transit funding crisis. The funding problem is real, but there was nothing magical about meeting Wednesday to deal with it. Calling a special session was just a PR gimmick.

While Blagojevich was reaching into his bag of trick and calling another of his famous special sessions, the CBS-TV affiliate in Chicago was working on a story about how the governor seldom shows up in Springfield or his Chicago office to work. People in Springfield and those who follow state government have long known Blagojevich isn’t exactly a 24/7 kind of guy. It’s more like 3/3. But the TV story promised to expose a whole lot more people to the governor’s work ethic.

It wasn’t like the TV story was one of those ambush jobs, either. The station worked on the story for weeks. Blagojevich’s security detail knew the station was monitoring the governor’s activities, which means the governor knew it, too. A couple of days before the story ran, the station began hyping the fact it would air Wednesday night.

So Wednesday came and lawmakers worked on mass transit funding, and the TV story was about to air. Blagojevich flew from Chicago to Springfield, met with legislative leaders for a couple of hours and then flew back to Chicago so he could go to the hockey game, while lawmakers stayed in session. That’s just stupid.

Blagojevich offered a bunch of excuses. He doesn’t have a vote in the General Assembly. The transit bill was going to fail anyway. He was honoring a commitment to a friend by attending the game. None of it washes.

The bottom line is Blagojevich ordered lawmakers to Springfield Wednesday to work on mass transit. They did, he didn’t. The episode just reinforces the belief of his critics (which now number about 70-80 percent of the electorate) that he’s more interested in playing governor than governing.

“The governor has a way of governing that baffles me,” said Senate Minority Leader FRANK WATSON, R-Greenville. Amen.

*This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of the big snow and ice storm that swept through central Illinois.

Not that it was the most serious result of the storm, but the Christmas lights on the Capitol were damaged and had to be removed, and a large part of the anti-bird netting strung around the building was torn down.

A year later, there’s some good news and some so-so news.

The good news is the Christmas lights are back. They’re strung from the Capitol’s dome down to the roof. Viewed from a distance, the lights look like they are part of a very large Christmas tree.

The lights are brand new. HENRY HAUPT, a spokesman for Secretary of State JESSE WHITE, said the old lights were too badly damaged to be repaired. The state spent $4,638 to purchase 12 very large strands of lights containing 600 bulbs. You can amaze your friends with that factoid at holiday parties.

The netting? That’s another story. A full year later and it still hasn’t been replaced. Haupt said it will be, but not before spring. Money for new netting is in the state budget, but the summer-long budget impasse delayed the start of the replacement project. Since birds aren’t a big problem around the Capitol in the winter, the project is being postponed until workers no longer have to deal with winter weather.

There’s some remnants of the netting near a main Capitol entrance that still haven’t been removed. Guess it -- and the pigeon that got tangled in the remnants last summer and died -- will be part of the Capitol decor for a while longer.

Doug Finke can be reached at (217) 788-1527 or doug.finke@sj-r.com.

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